


Surrender

by Anonymous



Category: La Passe-Miroir | The Mirror Visitor - Christelle Dabos
Genre: Gen, lots of yearning, set before tome 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-12
Updated: 2020-01-12
Packaged: 2021-02-25 03:35:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22229455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: In order to win a war, one must lose some battles.
Relationships: Thorn/Ophélie
Comments: 6
Kudos: 87
Collections: Anonymous





	Surrender

**Author's Note:**

> pre-tome 3

The most pressing of the battles Thorn fights everyday is the war to master his body. He eats when he must, sleeps when he must. He reduces drinking water to a minimum, so as to also reduce the number of bathroom breaks. 

His body, not the least of his enemies, rebels. It fights back by giving him dizzy spells and migraines when he goes too long without eating or drinking, and "too long" is not always a constant variable. It causes his eyelids to grow heavy and to close by themselves at times, even when his brain is still going at full speed, despite his carefully measured sleeping schedule.

It gives him dreams of Ophelia.

Unquiet spells where she is next to him and he cannot see her or touch her. Insipid near-memories of their early conversations in the library of his aunt’s state.

Feverish dreams that have him wake up strangely boneless, breathless, hard under the sheets.

Those he suppresses with violence: he has not the time nor the energy for it, he tells himself, because it’s more honest than saying he doesn’t want them. He has no talent for lying, not even to himself (the one quality that allows him to be a mirror traveler, like his wife), and in turn he feels boorish. Ophelia had resurrected inside him an instinct to indulge that Thorn thought long-dead - another enemy to conquer on a daily basis - but his better judgement is harsh. To think of her that way, without her knowing - it is something that someone like Archibald would do. _Has probably done._ He is gripped by such an overpowering feeling of disgust that his claws pulse through him once, twice, three times.

Fortunately, Babel's brand new computing system does not have a nervous system.

He might have envied the unfeeling sharpness of that machine itself, childishly, but he considers - an intrusive thought, really - that a machine could never love or be loved by Ophelia. A pathetic feeling, but one he cannot command. There is _nothing_ about his wife he could command if he wished - her will, her actions, whatever she feels for him. His feelings for her. His dreams.

On the following night, he dreams of her again. She is small and fast like a bullet, crossing the skies over a vast, unbroken world at an alarming speed. He knows it is a dream, then, so he turns around and goes the opposite direction, hoping to escape it. Illogically, the path before him bends, as if the world were as spheric as the shape of his office in the Memorial. His feet take up speed and he realizes, suddenly ecstatic, that the world _is_ round, and that his path brought him straight to Ophelia. He sees her form approaching from the other side at full speed, and he opens his arms. 

He wakes miliseconds before the collision, staring up at a familiarly bare ceiling. The joy he felt moments ago turns to ashes, and he suddenly feels exhausted. Weariness settles on top of him like a boulder, as oppressive as the haunting memory of Ophelia's body against his. A knot in his throat made it hard to breath.

Resignation has never been his forte, but this time, just this time, he might be willing to accept defeat. His aunt had told him once: in order to win a war, one must lose some battles.

He closes his eyes and turns over. The next time he dreams of her, he admits to himself that he welcomes it.


End file.
